__________________________________________________________
The U.S. Department of Energy
Computer Incident Advisory Center
___ __ __ _ ___
/ | /_\ /
\___ __|__ / \ \___
__________________________________________________________
INFORMATION BULLETIN
Format String Vulnerability in ISC DHCPD
[CERT Advisory CA-2002-12]
May 8, 2002 18:00 GMT Number M-079
[Revised 24 May 2002]
______________________________________________________________________________
PROBLEM: A format string vulnerability exists in ISC's DHCPD code that
logs the transaction.
PLATFORM: Any system running ISC DHCPD 3.0 to 3.0.1rc8 inclusive.
DAMAGE: A format string vulnerability may permit a remote attacker to
execute code with the privileges of the DHCPD (typically root).
SOLUTION: Apply the patch supplied by vendor. Depending on your network
configuration, CIAC recommends that you disable the DHCP
service.
______________________________________________________________________________
VULNERABILITY The risk is MEDIUM. Neither CERT nor CIAC have seen active
ASSESSMENT: scanning or exploitation of this vulnerability.
______________________________________________________________________________
LINKS:
CIAC BULLETIN: http://www.ciac.org/ciac/bulletins/m-079.shtml
ORIGINAL BULLETIN: http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2002-12.html
PATCHES: - 24 May, 2002 - SuSe (Linux) Patches available
http://www.suse.de/de/support/security/2002_19_dhcp.html
______________________________________________________________________________
[***** Start CERT Advisory CA-2002-12 *****]
CERT Advisory CA-2002-12 Format String Vulnerability in ISC DHCPD
Original release date: May 8, 2002
Last revised:--
Source: CERT/CC
A complete revision history can be found at the end of this file.
Systems Affected
* ISC DHCPD 3.0 to 3.0.1rc8 inclusive
Overview
The Internet Software Consortium (ISC) provides a Dynamic Host
Configuration Protocol Daemon (DHCPD), which is a server that is used
to allocate network addresses and assign configuration parameters to
hosts. A format string vulnerability may permit a remote attacker to
execute code with the privileges of the DHCPD (typically root). We
have not seen active scanning or exploitation of this vulnerability.
I. Description
ISC's DHCPD listens for requests from client machines connecting to
the network. Versions 3 to 3.0.1rc8 (inclusive) of DHCPD contains an
option (NSUPDATE) that is enabled by default. NSUPDATE allows the DHCP
server to send information about the host to the DNS server after
processing a DHCP request. The DNS server responds by sending an
acknowledgement message back to the DHCP server that may contain
user-supplied data (like a host name). When the DHCP server receives
the acknowledgement message from the DNS server, it logs the
transaction.
A format string vulnerability exists in ISC's DHCPD code that logs the
transaction. This vulnerability may permit a remote attacker to
execute code with the privileges of the DHCP daemon.
II. Impact
A remote attacker may be able to execute code with the privileges of
the DHCPD (typically root).
III. Solution
Note that some of the mitigation steps recommended below may have
significant impact on your normal network operations. Ensure that any
changes made based on the following recommendations will not
unacceptably affect any of your operations.
Apply a patch from your vendor
Appendix A contains information provided by vendors for this advisory.
Disable the DHCP service
As a general rule, the CERT/CC recommends disabling any service or
capability that is not explicitly required. Depending on your network
configuration, you may not need to use DHCP.
Ingress filtering
As a temporary measure, it may be possible to limit the scope of this
vulnerability by blocking access to DHCP services at the network
perimeter.
Ingress filtering manages the flow of traffic as it enters a network
under your administrative control. In the network usage policy of many
sites, there are few reasons for external hosts to initiate inbound
traffic to machines that provide no public services. Thus, ingress
filtering should be performed at the border to prohibit externally
initiated inbound traffic to non-authorized services. For DHCP,
ingress filtering of the following ports can prevent attackers outside
of your network from reaching vulnerable devices in the local network
that are not explicitly authorized to provide public DHCP services.
bootps 67/tcp # Bootstrap Protocol Server
bootps 67/udp # Bootstrap Protocol Server
bootpc 68/tcp # Bootstrap Protocol Client
bootpc 68/udp # Bootstrap Protocol Client
Appendix A. - Vendor Information
This appendix contains information provided by vendors for this
advisory. As vendors report new information to the CERT/CC, we will
update this section and note the changes in our revision history. If a
particular vendor is not listed below, please check the Vulnerability
Note (VU#854315) or contact your vendor directly.
Alcatel
The security of our customers' networks is of highest priority for
Alcatel. Alcatel is aware of this security issue in the DHCP
implementation of ISC and has put measures in place to assess which
of its products might be affected and to apply the necessary fixes
where required. An update will be shortly published to provide more
details on any affected products.
Conectiva
Conectiva Linux 8 ships dhcp-3.0 and is vulnerable to this problem.
Updates will be available at our ftp site and an announcement will
be sent to our mailing lists as soon as CERT publishes its
advisory.
F5 Networks, Inc.
F5 Networks' products do not include any affected version of ISC's
DHCPD, and are therefore not vulnerable.
FreeBSD
The FreeBSD base system does not ship with the ISC dhcpd server by
default and is not affected by this vulnerability. The ISC dhcpd
server is available in the FreeBSD Ports Collection; updates to the
ISC dhcp port (ports/net/isc-dhcp3) are in progress and corrected
packages will be available in the near future.
IBM
IBM's AIX operating system, all versions, is not vulnerable.
Internet Software Consortium
A patch is included below, and we have a patched version of 3.0
available (3.0pl1) and a new release candidate for the next bug-fix
release (3.0.1RC9). Both of these new releases are not vulnerable.
--- common/print.c Tue Apr 9 13:41:17 2002
+++ common/print.c.patched Tue Apr 9 13:41:56 2002
@@ -1366,8 +1366,8 @@
*s++ = '.';
*s++ = 0;
if (errorp)
- log_error (obuf);
+ log_error ("%s",obuf);
else
- log_info (obuf);
+ log_info ("%s",obuf);
}
#endif /* NSUPDATE */
Lotus Development Corporation
This issue does not affect Lotus products.
Microsoft Corporation
Microsoft does not ship the ISC DHCPD program.
NetBSD
NetBSD fixed this during a format string sweep performed on
11-Oct-2000. No released version of NetBSD is vulnerable to this
issue.
Silicon Graphics, Inc.
SGI is not vulnerable.
_________________________________________________________________
The CERT Coordination Center acknowledges Next Generation Security
Technologies as the discoverer of this vulnerability and thanks them
and the Internet Software Consortium (ISC) for their cooperation,
reporting, and analysis of this vulnerability.
_________________________________________________________________
Feedback can be directed to the author: Ian A. Finlay
______________________________________________________________________
This document is available from:
http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2002-12.html
______________________________________________________________________
CERT/CC Contact Information
Email: cert@cert.org
Phone: +1 412-268-7090 (24-hour hotline)
Fax: +1 412-268-6989
Postal address:
CERT Coordination Center
Software Engineering Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh PA 15213-3890
U.S.A.
CERT/CC personnel answer the hotline 08:00-17:00 EST(GMT-5) /
EDT(GMT-4) Monday through Friday; they are on call for emergencies
during other hours, on U.S. holidays, and on weekends.
Using encryption
We strongly urge you to encrypt sensitive information sent by email.
Our public PGP key is available from
http://www.cert.org/CERT_PGP.key
If you prefer to use DES, please call the CERT hotline for more
information.
Getting security information
CERT publications and other security information are available from
our web site
http://www.cert.org/
To subscribe to the CERT mailing list for advisories and bulletins,
send email to majordomo@cert.org. Please include in the body of your
message
subscribe cert-advisory
* "CERT" and "CERT Coordination Center" are registered in the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office.
______________________________________________________________________
NO WARRANTY
Any material furnished by Carnegie Mellon University and the Software
Engineering Institute is furnished on an "as is" basis. Carnegie
Mellon University makes no warranties of any kind, either expressed or
implied as to any matter including, but not limited to, warranty of
fitness for a particular purpose or merchantability, exclusivity or
results obtained from use of the material. Carnegie Mellon University
does not make any warranty of any kind with respect to freedom from
patent, trademark, or copyright infringement.
_________________________________________________________________
Conditions for use, disclaimers, and sponsorship information
Copyright 2002 Carnegie Mellon University.
Revision History
May 8, 2002: Initial release
[***** End CERT Advisory CA-2002-12 *****]
_______________________________________________________________________________
CIAC wishes to acknowledge the contributions of CERT for the
information contained in this bulletin.
_______________________________________________________________________________
CIAC, the Computer Incident Advisory Center, is the computer
security incident response team for the U.S. Department of Energy
(DOE) and the emergency backup response team for the National
Institutes of Health (NIH). CIAC is located at the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory in Livermore, California. CIAC is also a founding
member of FIRST, the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams, a
global organization established to foster cooperation and coordination
among computer security teams worldwide.
CIAC services are available to DOE, DOE contractors, and the NIH. CIAC
can be contacted at:
Voice: +1 925-422-8193 (7x24)
FAX: +1 925-423-8002
STU-III: +1 925-423-2604
E-mail: ciac@ciac.org
Previous CIAC notices, anti-virus software, and other information are
available from the CIAC Computer Security Archive.
World Wide Web: http://www.ciac.org/
Anonymous FTP: ftp.ciac.org
PLEASE NOTE: Many users outside of the DOE, ESnet, and NIH computing
communities receive CIAC bulletins. If you are not part of these
communities, please contact your agency's response team to report
incidents. Your agency's team will coordinate with CIAC. The Forum of
Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) is a world-wide
organization. A list of FIRST member organizations and their
constituencies can be obtained via WWW at http://www.first.org/.
This document was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an
agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States
Government nor the University of California nor any of their
employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any
legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or
usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process
disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately
owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial products,
process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or
otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement,
recommendation or favoring by the United States Government or the
University of California. The views and opinions of authors expressed
herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States
Government or the University of California, and shall not be used for
advertising or product endorsement purposes.
LAST 10 CIAC BULLETINS ISSUED (Previous bulletins available from CIAC)
CIACTech02-003: Protecting Office for Mac X Antipiracy Server Ports
M-070: Apache HTTP Server on Win32 Vulnerability
M-071: Oracle9i User Privileges Vulnerability
M-072: FreeBSD stdio File Descriptors Vulnerability
M-073: Microsoft Outlook E-mail Editor Vulnerability
M-074: SGI IRIX cpr Vulnerability
M-075: HP Security Vulnerability in MPE/iX FTPSRVR
M-076: SGI IRIX nsd symlink Vulnerability
M-077: SGI IRIX Xlib Vulnerability
M-078: Sun Heap Overflow in Cachefs Daemon (cachefsd)